Halloween Ends and Smile are currently the big commercial horror flicks in cinemas approaching October 31st. However, it seems they may have company. The Banshees of Inisherin, written, directed, and produced by Martin McDonagh, is the Halloween film nobody saw coming. A richly entertaining and unsettling dark comedy, the film transports us to the fictional yet all-too-real, windswept, green island of Inisherin off the west coast of Ireland. Set amidst the backdrop of the Irish Civil War, it introduces us to Padraic (Colin Farrell) and Colm (Brendan Gleeson) who live on the island. The premise is a simple one: Colm decides one day that he doesn’t want to be Padraic’s friend anymore. This sets Padraic on a crusade to find out why and set things right, which leads him down a path of destruction, as the idyllic land turns into the setting of his worst nightmare.
Fourteen years after the release of McDonagh’s, cult classic In Bruges, Inisherin reunites Brendan Gleeson and Colin Farrell on screen who slip effortlessly into their respective roles as the unlikely duo forced together by fate of circumstance – Gleeson as the wiser and world-weary fiddle player and Farrell as the naïve dairy farmer with a childlike innocence. It’s not unlike the dynamic from Father Ted, only this time, with a dark twist. One of the strengths of this film lies in the terrific casting choices. Kerry Condon delivers a stellar performance as Padraig’s intelligent and silently-suffering sister, Siobhan. Barry Keoghan equally impresses as Dominic, the brazen young man and ‘village idiot’ who’s smarter than he seems. Pat Shortt as the pub owner and Gary Lydon as the police officer, are cast well and you can’t forget Sheila Flitton, who plays the mysterious Mrs. McCormac, the actual banshee of Inisherin in all but name.
Location is an integral part of Martin McDonagh’s filmmaking – he has a habit of featuring the setting in the title of his films, as it does here (In Bruges, Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri). The son of Irish parents, McDonagh, as a playwright, draws much inspiration from the west of Ireland – in his Leenane and Aran Island trilogies. The Banshees of Inisherin marks his first attempt to bring this very familiar setting of his to the big screen. Putting the location in the title and making it such a dominant feature of the film, is an invitation to the viewer, to observe a distinct ecosystem in motion, moving to its own rhythm and detached from the world that exists around it. So, while a bloody and brutal civil war rages on just miles away, it barely registers with the locals of Inisherin, or the viewer for that matter.
It’s also worth emphasising that this film is painfully funny. Sometimes it’s just a look or a glance from our protagonists at one another. It could be the merits of Padraic’s ‘dullness’ being argued over in the pub. You have Dominic saying way more than he should at the dinner table. Then there’s the ducking behind a wall to avoid Mrs. McCormack and the curiosity that is Jenny, the miniature donkey who happens to have excellent comic timing throughout. The confessionals between Colm and the priest are a riot. ‘Father, is it a sin not to be his friend anymore? No, but it’s not very nice.’ As the story develops and the violence ratchets up, the humour becomes more and more absurd, very in keeping with McDonagh’s style, but perhaps a bit too much for the fainthearted.
The confessional sequences in particular tell you a lot about this film in a short space of time. They bookend the narrative, featuring in the first and final acts. Both times, the priest opens with the same question: ‘How’s the despair?’ As you watch and observe this band of characters on the island, you come to learn that they’re all knowingly or otherwise fighting to keep the bleakness and isolation of life on the island at bay. Some turn to gossip and friendly small talk while others turn to drink and abusive behaviour – everyone has their coping mechanism. For Colm, as a fiddle player, it is music – but even that isn’t enough to keep his demons in check. Fundamentally, the question being asked is how does facing one’s own mortality and the muddy reality of existence, change one’s perspective on life, if it can at all?
The devil really is in the detail with this piece of filmmaking. Carter Burwell puts his signature on here, with a sparse, nuanced score that perfectly captures the unsettling tension bubbling beneath the surface. The choice of Bulgarian choral music to score the opening scene is beguiling but fits perfectly into place. Ben Davis work on the cinematography takes your breath away, with shots of the landscape straight out of an old western and painstaking attention to the most minute details in the frame. The film’s setting on the island operates on an axis – shifting between the local pub, Colm’s house by the sea and Padraic’s farmhouse. It functions therefore, much like a play with consistency of setting and a strong emphasis on dialogue. The result is something you just can’t take your eyes off and perhaps a future adaptation for the stage awaits this masterful piece of storytelling.
My score is 4.7/5
Top site ,.. amazaing post ! Just keep the work on !